Actually, with the exception of Spawn, that is one of the better lists I've seen of this ilk. Millers Daredevil run completely trumps Bendis, and The Killing Joke is hands down the best Joker story ever told, and it was a one shot that actually affected the DCU proper (and still does to this day).

"Watchmen" is simply the best superhero story ever told, period.

One last note, by "DC Crisis" I really hope they're refering to CIOE and Not IC.

At a guess, I'd say Spawn only made the list because it was Image's big cashcow when they launched (and all the fuss & hype that went with both it and Image). Other than that I agree with this list, what I know of it; I haven't read Strangers In Paradise though.
And yes, Watchmen deserves every bit of praise it gets.

Spawn only made it because it was the beginning of Image, the first non-big two company to make it big.

Never read Strangers but hear great things. Like Y The Last Man, I just don't read it because I didn't get into it from the beginning.

I'd sub out Starman though and replace it with the Death of Superman. Why? Not for the book itself but what it did for comics. It was such a major event that real media covered it as if it was real. USA Today, the NY Times, etc all covered the Death of the Man of Steel, a COMIC EVENT. It brought comics into the national spotlight.

I think TMNT Vol. 1 should have been in the top 10. It made the top 25 that they narowed the list down from. I would have liked a nod to Green Arrow: Longbow Hunters by Mike Grell as well. I also think The Life & Times of Uncle Scrooge by Don Rosa is the greatest underrated classic of the past 20 years.

I'm watching the Starman video at the moment, and it seems that this sometimes seems more like "Best comics" rather than "important comics".... and this is an important distinction to me, because "important comics" aren't always the best-written ones; they're more like things that that advanced, affected the medium, etc.

SPAWN, while not really that good storywise, is important in the sense that it was an incredibly successful, high-profile independent title--the comic consistantly stayed in the Top 10 comics ordered for most of the 90's... I think it's also significant in that the success McFarlane got from it allowed him to create his toy empire, which probably influenced the way a lot of action figures are made today (I wonder if we'd have seen Marvel Legends the way they were if there were no McFarlane Toys?).

Miller's DAREDEVIL helped influence a ninja craze, catapulted Miller to stardom, brought forth a popular character (Elektra), was part of what influenced the creation of the Ninja Turtles. Yeah, it's certainly significant.

CRISIS was a big story and beget the modern DCU revamps such as MAN OF STEEL, BATMAN: YEAR ONE, Perez's WONDER WOMAN, etc all of which were mostly used for more than a decade, so it is significant to the mainline DC Comics.

SANDMAN was an incredibly successful DC Comic (near the end of its run retailers ordered more of this than Batman and Superman comics), won awards, helped launch DC's Vertigo line, and is a comic that I think has been highly recommended by many non-comics publications. So this is incredibly significant to comics.

DARK KNIGHT RETURNS brought further popularity to Frank Miller and not only set the tone for Batman comics for the next 20 years, but also (along with WATCHMEN) influenced the grim and gritty era, and partly influenced the tone of the Batman movies as well.

STRANGERS IN PARADISE, HELLBOY, and STARMAN I like, but I don't feel they made a really significant impact as the above did.... But I'll do a little searching to see if they did or not.

I'm debating whether BATMAN: THE KILLING JOKE is important to comics... Tim Burton was influenced by this moreso than DARK KNIGHT while making the 1989 BATMAN film, so that's pretty significant--without the first BATMAN movie you wouldn't get non-comics-reading people to take Batman seriously at the time. I guess it fits in with DARK KNIGHT as comics that changed Batman for the 90's, but still....

And I gotta agree with you, if this is "important," then Death of Superman would be on the list because of how big it was at the time (even though the story really wasn't good). If this is covering the 1981-2000, then I'd include Miracleman, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, McFarlane's Spider-Man #1, The Authority, and whatever caused the manga-style influence on comics (Joe Madureira's X-Men? J. Scott Campbell's Gen 13?) and others that I can't think of at the moment but might probably go into detail later.

I think TMNT Vol. 1 should have been in the top 10. It made the top 25 that they narowed the list down from. I would have liked a nod to Green Arrow: Longbow Hunters by Mike Grell as well. I also think The Life & Times of Uncle Scrooge by Don Rosa is the greatest underrated classic of the past 20 years.

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I'd figure TMNT #1 should be high on the list (though I don't know where yet... may or may not make it to the top 10), mainly because it created pop culture icons and also ignited a black-and-white independent comics boom.

SPAWN, while not really that good storywise, is important in the sense that it was an incredibly successful, high-profile independent title--the comic consistantly stayed in the Top 10 comics ordered for most of the 90's... I think it's also significant in that the success McFarlane got from it allowed him to create his toy empire, which probably influenced the way a lot of action figures are made today (I wonder if we'd have seen Marvel Legends the way they were if there were no McFarlane Toys?).

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I agree, and they pretty much say this in the video (well, not the action figure part, but that's just as important, albeit tangential). It's on there essentially in spite of the content of the book itself...although, I actually liked it for the first 40 issues or so. Spawn was merely the poster boy for Image, which shook up the industry in a way not replicated since.

Also agree that Death of Superman should have been on there. That was fucking huge...inversely proportional to it's lameness of course, but it's not every decade that the NYT has stories on a comic book and the local news is staked out at the comic shop.

That being said, as a "casual comic fan", that list doesn't relate. I would have voted X-Men in there, only because for many years, it was the best selling comic. When the book launched "X-Men" from "Uncanny X-Men" it really helped define the title and the franchise to this very day. To not put them in the top 10 list has nothing to do with "important" comics, it's because it's "popular" and God forbid a comic seen as "popular" and hashes out 12 variations of itself every month makes it in to a Top 10 list of the last 20 years.

Let's not forget the reason it has 12 variations is BECAUSE of its success.

I would also include Spider-Man, if anything to show fans how even comic book writers can fuck up a franchise and the editors find a way to reverse it, time and time and time again.

You're missing out, cause Starman is one of the best written series in a long time. And I even count it better then Sandman, of which I was also a big fan of. I've got almost the complete run of Starman, and have no idea where it is in the house. I really want to find them and complete the set, and read it again.

Spawn is important because it also heralded in the age of "creator owned" titles, something Image are still doing today, to great success. What I -don't- understand being in there are Hellboy... why? And also the Killing Joke, something even Alan Moore isn't that arsed about. Sure, it's fucking great, but one of the most important? Naw.